Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
by Nathaneal Jacobs
Summary: [Not based on a movie] Mike messes up three months into his possition. When he's given another chance will he take it if it means getting rid of his best friend...permanently?
1. Lessons 1 & 2

The faucet in the bathroom always leaked. Drip, drop, drip, drop. No matter how tight the knob's turned, drip, drop. Every door creaked, though it only seemed to do so at night when one would prefer to move about unnoticed by the tenants living three floors up. The lack of windows threw the place into a perpetual night, a feeling of being under ground. It was rather fitting, being the resident's occupation, but of course, that explains the guns stashed in discreet places all around the apartment. An unfinished dinner was set out on the table, one plate attracting a plethora of flies that felt the need to pick at it. One plate had been left, as if in a hurry to get away. Even from the dining room the dripping of the bathroom faucet could be heard. As time seemed to float by the door from the outside hall into the dining room opened.

"First time in three years I finally get the chance to sit down to a real dinner and that son of a—" Kyle let out a sigh that engulfed his curse. He was a relatively small man, in height, but he was quick. His eyes were dark and aged and his dark hair was thinning and had a few streaks of silver running through it like the Nile across a dark, nighttime desert. He wore dark colors, all of which could be mistaken for black at a distance, and his clothes were rather loose and well worn. He stepped aside from the door to let another man enter his home. "Come on in, Mike," he said, "It's been too long." He was trying to be polite to his "friend" but his voice was all but inviting.

A much taller man came in. He was younger, light haired and fair skinned. His eyes were bright blue with a dark gold ring around the pupil. This was Mike, the enthusiastic rookie. "I know what you mean," he said wisely, "Three months isn't enough time to completely forget about me." He was one of the more joyful youths. He wore white and black with a brown coat. His voice had a resonating air that seemed to ring like the bells of Notre Dame. "Stop scowling, you're making me feel more unwelcome than I already am."

The smallest hint of a smile broke on the shorter man's stern face. He chuckled and collected his unfinished dinner to clean it up a bit. "So, why exactly have you been put back with me?" he asked, "Screw up an assignment?"

"A lady passed in front of my target," he explained, "She was wearing enough jewelry for ten women and it nearly blinded me in the sunlight. Next thing I knew the guy I was aiming for was gone." Mike sat down at the table. "You got any beer?" One of Mike's greatest faults is that he is a horrible drinker, but he tries to pretend he's not. The way in which he's horrible is that when he's at a party or drinking with some friends he's on his first when everyone else is downing his third. It's not that he can't take the alcohol or anything. He is just very slow at drinking anything.

"I trust you want a can and not a bottle?" Kyle called from his small kitchen. He always poked fun at Mike's taking the can being that it was smaller and he could drink it faster, though Mike still wouldn't admit it.

Mike didn't answer. He took out his lighter and started flicking it on and off. "Whatever happened to Julie?" he asked, noticing the emptiness of the flat for the first time. "She find a gun and take off thinking you wanted to kill her?"

"No, I did kill her," Kyle said flatly. He passed Mike a can and sat down opposite him. "She planned on quitting the business. You know what happens when things like that get out in the public. The tests in this job are killer."

"They gave her hit to you," Mike realized, "to see if you were still loyal." He sighed and snapped the can open. "I'm surprised you haven't disappeared yet." A disappearance is what these guys call it when a mercenary flees the country. Often times it's to escape their fate when they quit the job. The death penalty was a secret until very recently when the boss decided to make it a test.

Kyle tried to put his late wife from his mind. Mental agony was only a weakness that he didn't want to deal with right now. "I suppose the other reason you're here is to start living with me again?" he asked.

Mike gave a wry smile. "They kicked me out of my flat because they got sick of me shooting holes in the wall," he laughed, "I always repaired them, but I guess the noise was the worst part." He sipped the Coors Light he held in his hand. "You know, I broke up with Maggie a month ago, if it's any consolation. Yeah, I don't see how it would be. She's called me ten times a day after I told her with death threats."

"I'm not going after Maggie, just to save your tail," Kyle said, knowing the inner meaning, "I don't want her pyromaniac fingers anywhere near me." He set his empty bottle on the table and leaned his head against his palm. "I guess you can sleep on the couch until life decides to be kind and return your home to you."

"Oh, you're too kind," Mike said sarcastically. He knew Kyle had a guestroom. A poorly furnished guestroom, but it at least had a bed. "I know, I know," he said, "I'm still the new kid."

Kyle ignored him and went out of the room to his now empty bedroom to get some much-needed sleep. Mike left his beer on the table, even though it was still almost full. He went out of the room through a different door that led to the TV room of the flat. TV room, meaning a room with a large couch and 27" screen TV. As time enough passed for them both to be asleep there was a sound at the doorknob. It sounded like when someone hangs a Do Not Disturb sign on their door at a hotel.

**Lesson 1: New kid gets last dibs

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**

The bottom floor of Kyle's flat was literally underground. He had convinced the caretaker to let him use the basement. Against the only wall that was not blocked by pipes and electrical boxes there was a stuffed dummy, still full of bullet holes. Kyle had a tendency to get practice dolls that looked like his targets, so currently his wife Julie was hanging from the ceiling full of bullets awaiting Kyle's next hit so she'd be taken down and thrown away. Until then, Kyle refused to even go down there to look at what he'd done to his wife. He tried to make her as unrecognizable as possible. There were footsteps on the stairs and Mike's black shoes came in to view from the low ceiling. Slowly the rest of him was revealed.

He held his favorite gun in his left hand. There was not evidence of his ease from the night before. Now he was tense and almost scared. He'd woken up before Kyle this morning to find that his next hit was hanging on the doorknob in the hall. He felt like vomiting when he read it, and quickly found cause to burn it with his lighter. Now he had to practice.

He would settle for this dummy for now, being that he'd never really approved of Kyle's wife in the first place. She seemed like a tramp to him. He shot three rounds, aiming for the stomach but hitting the legs and right shoulder. He hoped no one would ever see this. Mike was most well known as the rookie with the perfect aim. Now, though, as he tried to imagine firing at his target, he found it impossible to make a fatal shot. "Dang," he muttered.

He aimed again, closed his eyes and tried shooting like that, having his target's well-known face in his mind's eye. When he opened his eyes he had shot the dummy's face where the bridge of the nose would be. He swallowed the lump in his throat that came with the complete dread that his hit brought him.

"You're up early," a voice behind him said. He turned to see some one coming down the steps. "Oh, Mike, it's you. I thought Kyle had gotten a new mission." A dark man stood before him. His skin was almost the opposite in color to Mike's, same with his eyes. He wore black, all black, like most other assassins, but there was one thing about him that was different. He wore a nice necklace that one would expect the Queen to wear. Key word being QUEEN. Jordan, the homosexual, one of the two people responsible for communicating the distribution of hits.

"Hey, Jordan," Mike said, "Wouldn't you know if Kyle got a new mission?" He sounded a little more annoyed than intended. "Sorry, I'm not in the best of moods this morning."

"Did some one wake up on the wrong side of the bed?" Jordan asked sounding more like a mother than the large man that he was.

Mike raised an eyebrow and sat down on the bottom step with a sigh. "That has got to be the gayest thing you've said since I broke up with Maggie," he said with a smile, "Good to see you again."

Jordan looked at the dummy and separated the old shots from Mike's shots. "You're aim's off," he commented, "What's up with you?" He sat down next to Mike. When Mike first started, Jordan's closeness always made him exceedingly uncomfortable, but one gets used to it when they become more comfortable with their own sexuality.

"Being that you're asking, you didn't give me my assignment?" Mike observed, getting an affirmative. "My next target is what's with me." He set his gun down and rubbed his head. "He's letting me stay with him."

"Oh," Jordan said, "Kyle." He reached over Mike and picked up the gun. He put a hand on the kid's shoulder. "You know, I always knew you were too young for this job. Just out of high school last year. That's why you're not on my list."

Mike looked up at him with a strange look. "Thanks that's really helping," he retorted sarcastically. Mike was strait, mind you, but it'd always been his philosophy that if a gay guy doesn't give you a second look than no girl would either. "I don't want to kill my mentor, my best friend," he said, "just because of some rumor."

Jordan put an arm around Mike in an attempt to be comforting. "Mike, sometimes, you have to understand," he began, "in this job the only thing that we can trust are rumors. This organization is too secretive for it's own good and that's the only way for things to get around."

"Thanks for the pep talk," Mike replied, "but won't your boyfriend get jealous when he sees you hugging me in a basement." He shot Jordan a sly smile, to which Jordan replied only with a sigh.

"Come on, let's get a drink," he said, "you look like you need it. And don't worry, we'll keep it small."

"Die," Mike said, "A horrible, painful death."

The gun was left on the bottom step to watch their retreating steps. The pipe that led to Kyle's bathroom sink dripped every once in a while. A rat scurried up to the steps and sat on the gun for a moment, sniffing the area around it. It's small eyes caught sight of the dummy with the bullets holes and it took off in the dummy's direction. The fabric was shredding in some places on the doll and the flat facial features were all but worn off the surface. The water heater hummed quietly. Everything turned dark and the rat took off when the door at the top of the basement slammed shut.

**Lesson 2: Practice on your target

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Author's Note: I need reviews!!! On all of my storries or I will not post again! If you'd like to know what happens: REVIEW!!!**

Disclaimer: I kind tweeked this plot from something else. I don't really remember what, but if you know it'd be nice to tell me.

Rating: PG-13


	2. Lesson 3

In a radius of about a half-mile you can just hear what everyone's dancing to at Bubba's dance club. Of course, no one called the boss Bubba except for the man's mother, but the knowledge of the name helped his employees remember that the man they hardly ever saw did exist. If you voiced that you doubted the fact, his closest bodyguards would soon get the news and take care of you. Half the people enjoying themselves with dancing didn't work for him, so they had no knowledge of the oppression felt by all the assassins. This wasn't a modern, semi-democratic organization. It was more easily described as a medieval system of lord and knights. Except these knights get paid slightly less. Bubba's office was in a dark room behind the club, stressing the fact that he didn't like people seeing his face. Everyone who worked for him had, once, but he still insisted on being secreted. When Mike entered and smelled the strong cigarette smell, he knew he was unfortunately in the right place.

"Michael," Bubba said, "sit down, my man. What can I do for you?" The dim red light that emitted from a lamp behind the boss's desk gave the room and eerie quality only seen in movies.

Mike sat down blinking to try and adjust his eyes to the light. It was his theory that Bubba kept his office so dark so that his visitors would be too flustered to give him any complaints about their job. "I want you to take that hit off Kyle," Mike said, getting straight to business, "The man's your number one assassin."

Bubba sighed in a knowing way. "Mike, look," he began, his dry voice gaining an air of fatigue, "I know you and Kyle developed a rather close relationship in the term you spent learning from him. And I'd like to remind you that you are hardly old enough to make demands of me. Still, to give you reason: this organization has lasted this long because there have not been any leaks. If I just let people walk away from this, who's to say they won't go straight to the police?"

Mike took a deep breath to keep from yelling. "Who's to say that they will?" he retorted, "What if a man just wants to settled down and have a calm life for the few years he thinks he has left? You know Kyle's getting old. Just let him go."

Bubba's lighter flicked on and lit a cigarette and in that time Mike could see the large nose that rested just above the man's cracked lips. The boss took a drag and sighed again. "I'm beginning to think that Jordan was right when he said you were too young," he said, "You're naïve. Maybe you need a vacation."

Now here was something Mike had heard fables about. Bubba's vacation spot was apparently some small penitentiary that Bubba and his mother owned. Mike shook his head, but refused to be daunted. "No, I'm not naïve," he insisted, "I'm just the only one in this room that seems to think things through." He said this quietly and glanced at the two bodyguards that were always standing there when Bubba was in attendance.

"Exactly," Bubba said, "That exactly your fault. You think too much. That's not what this job is about. You take your job, you do your job as quickly as possible, you get paid and then you wait for your next one. Got it?"

Mike slammed a fist on the desk. "You're inhuman," he said, "I'll happily kill some one who threatens you or me, as long as I get my pay. I WILL NOT get rid of a friend on your whim. That is completely ridiculous!" He made to stand but both guards were on him in two seconds flat. They pushed him down to the chair and held him there.

"Now listen here, boy," Bubba said, "You're on thin ice already because of your screw up with your last hit. I think it's rather generous to give you a chance to redeem yourself, don't you?" Mike tried to squirm away from the guards, but they held him tight. "Don't think you're in control. _I_ run this gig, _me_! You have three days, and if Kyle's not laid out in a box by then, you're as good as dead."

* * *

It was cold that night, as were most nights and the lot behind the club was almost pitch black being that rain clouds covered the moon. Very slowly ice-cold drips of water began to fall from the sky. Nearby a few dogs barked a conversation at each other through the boundaries of backyards. The light pole on the edge of the light flickered on for a moment and then went dark again. As if on cue, the rain came pouring down as if a bucket had been tipped over. Mike came out the back door into this downpour. He pulled his coat tighter around him and took out his lighter. Cupped in his hand, and protected by the rain the lighter flared to life close to Mike's face, giving him just a little warmth.

Mike knew that he had to kill Kyle if he didn't want to die a gruesome death, but he also knew that he'd hate himself for the rest of his prolonged life afterwards. The only reason he could stand this job was because he only had to kill those he didn't know. He didn't look into the profile of his targets and hardly ever referred to them as people. But Kyle was a person, and as a person, Mike had no right to stab him in the back. Then he realized that this must have been Kyle's same argument when he had to kill his wife. Mike felt the pain, then. He could feel the heart ache at the images of his good friend with a bullet in his head flashed in his mind. He felt his eyes sting and his lighter went out with a chill breeze that passed.

It happened so suddenly that mike dropped his lighter. His head hit the wall and some one strong gripped the front of his coat. Mike first noticed the gun pointed at his face was his. He looked up and found himself staring down at dark eyes belonging to Kyle. Mike's knees had bent from the sudden movement and he stayed at that level, making himself almost Kyle's height. "You always were a jerk," Kyle said, "but that's low. Convincing me to let you stay, now you're going to kill me?"

Mike leaned away from the gun, into the wall as far as he could. "It's not like that, Kyle," he said, "What do you mean I've always been a jerk?" He tried to control his already fueled anger being that there was a gun pointed at his jaw.

Kyle pressed the cold metal into Mike's cheek and it felt like an ice sickle trying to break his skin. "Shut up!" he demanded, "What was on of the things I taught you?"

"But you just told me to shut up, how am I supposed to answer?" Mike found the wrong time to be a smart alec. He felt the gun smack across his face and his hands shot up to hold his nose and keep blood from running all over everything. "I don't know," he said, "You always said a lot of things. Always wear clean underwear." His head was slammed against the wall. "Always follow your target unless you're life's threatened!"

"Exactly," Kyle hissed barely audible over the pattering rain. "You're life looks threatened from this stand point. Maybe that means you should lay off until I can get out of here."

"So it's true then," Mike challenged, "You are retiring." Mike tried to pull himself away. "Another thing you taught me was not to let your secrets slip. So it isn't my fault! You stuck you're neck out too far!"

Kyle let him go and slammed the gun into his head just for the record. Mike fell to his hands and knees, clutching the side of his head. He heard the gun fall to the ground next to him and footsteps disappear into the pounding rain around him. He stood for a moment and leaned against the cold wall, pressing his head against it to numb the ache. He could barely see Jordan come up to him after what seemed like years. "Oh, honey," he said, "You need a doctor. Come on." Jordan put an arm around him to hold him up and led him out of the dark lot.

The light pole flickered on once more and stayed lit for a little while longer and then went out as if seeing that there was no action anymore. The rain kind of let up a little and slowly seemed to lighten. No dogs barked, but the music could suddenly be heard over the rain is it softened. A rat scurried out of a crack in the wall and stopped and sniffed. It noticed that Jordan had picked up the gun this time and decided to just go back into its little hole in the wall.

**Lesson 3: Boss and Mentor are one in the same. Out to save their own hide.

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Author's Note: I'm not good at keeping my word, but here's part two... Believe it or not, this story is almost over.**


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